Every year my mother, my sister and I take an annual Interior Design trip to Paris. We visit the fair Maison & Objet in which we choose the collections to sell for the next few months. After visiting the design fair it is then routine to dine somewhere delicious and delightful. Quite a few years ago we frequented Le Petit Zinc, it was always a delight – the service and the food, until the service became worse and worse. Rude waiters, slow service. Then we stopped. We instead went to our old faithful friend Le Relais de l‘Entrecote. I thoroughly recommend visiting Le Relais de l’Entrecote for delicious steaks and chips, and their delicious secret sauce – OH LA LA!

We decided to forgive Le Petit Zinc and give it another shot. It was my mother’s birthday so we wanted it to be an incredibly special occasion. Unfortunately, it was disgusting. The food was rotten – actually mouldy, or served cold. We waited over an hour for a cold fish soup. Which when it was being brought over had a waiters fingers in it…. I can’t actually believe I am writing this. It was the WORST restaurant I have ever been to! THE WORST!

The fish soup that took so long to arrive was cold. It was also filled with flour. It tasted like eating something that was not edible. We all decided it was what wallpaper paste tasted like. Brown wallpaper paste with odd bits of dill and rubbery carrot floating in it. None of us finished it, which is incredibly rare for us Williams girls.

My main fish course was served with a side of over cooked, yellow green beans, an over-cooked greying hard boiled egg, one watery boiled potato and what seemed like a pint of oil.

Over-cooked yellow green beans, an over-cooked greying hard boiled egg, one watery boiled potato and what seemed like a pint of oil

Oleaginous beans

My mother ordered a salad. The leaves were brown at the edges and brown where they had been cut. When pointing this out to the waiter (the same one who put his fingers in my soup) he shrugged and said “Yes they are a variety of leaves…”

My mother replied “Yes I can see that. A variety of gone off salad leaves.” The waiter walked off and from then on refuse to serve us at all. No one attended to our table. We sat there requesting service for an hour and a half before deciding it was time to leave this awful restaurant with mouldy food and disgusting service.

The “variety” of rotten salad leaves

Avoid Le Petit Zinc at all costs.

Instead visit the lovely and delicious Le Relais de l‘Entrecote over the road, where the service is good and so is the food.